Copy of Karen Horney

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Career (1885-1952) Karen Horney Born Karen Danielson on September 16, 1885 near Hamburg, Germany to parents Clotilde and Berndt Wackles Danielson Životopis Her parents divorced, and her father remarried to a woman named Sonni, with whom he had a son named Berndt Childhood Horney also had four half-siblings from her father's previous marriage She was a lot closer to her mother than to her authoritarian father, who favored Berndt over her She developed a crush on her brother when she was nine, but her feelings were rejected, which led her to her first stages of depression that would affect her for the rest of her life Education & Youth In 1906, Horney attended medical school against her father's wishes and against society's standards at the time Horney's first job was as a professor at the Institute for Pyschoanalysis in Berlin, Germany Neurosis Theories Horney had three theories based on neurosis, psychoanalysis, and inner conflicts Although she agreed with many of Sigmund Freud's ideas, she also questioned and critized many of his traditional beliefs, especially his theory of sexuality Thus, her work is often classified as Neo-Freudian Horney was further able to condense these ten needs into three categories of personality (aka coping-strategies): compliance (moving toward people), aggression (moving against people), and detachment (moving away from people) In 1904, her stepmother Sonni divorced her father, leaving her and Berndt under his care In 1909, she married Oskar Horney, who she met in medical school and who was very authoritarian, like her father She gave birth to the first of three daughters, Bridgette, a year later During her mid twenties, her mother passed away, her husband developed meningitis and his business collapsed, and her brother Berndt died of a pulmonary infection, all of which sent Horney deeper into her depression; she later considered committing suicide In 1930, Horney and her children moved out of Oskar's house to Brooklyn, NY, where she met many academics such as Erich Fromm, and where she formed her theories on neurosis and personality, which she based on her experiences as a psychotherapist When she moved to the US, she also taught at The New School in NY as well as the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis In 1937, she published the book The Neurotic Personality of Our Time, which had wide popular readership By 1941, she was Dean of the American Institute of Psychoanalysis, a training institute for those who were interested in her own organization, the Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis, which she founded after becoming dissatisfied with the generally strict, orthodox nature of the psychoanalytic community She also founded a journal called the American Journal of Psychoanalysis. Horney's deviation from Freudian psychology led to her resigning from her post, and she took up teaching in the New York Medical College, where she continued practicing psychiatry until her death in 1952 Neurosis = a relatively mild mental illness involving symptoms of stress (depression, anxiety, obsessive behavior, hypochondria) but not a radical loss of touch with reality. Horney characterizes neurosis as "psychic disturbance brought by fears and defenses against these fears, and by attempts to find compromise solutions for conflicting tendencies." While everyone copes with their struggles on a daily basis, the neurotic has trouble handling certain stressful social and environmental situations, resulting in mental problems The Karen Horney Clinic opened on May 6, 1955 in New York City in honor of Horney's achievements The institution seeks to research and train medical professionals, particularly in the psychiatric fields, and serve as a low-cost treatment center While most of her colleagues believed that neurosis was a negative malfunction of the mind in response to external stimuli (i.e. divorce, death of a loved one, or other negative experiences during childhood and adolescence), Horney believed neurosis was a continuous process that occurred commonly and sporadically in one's lifetime. Horney believes that neurosis is caused by stressful cultural and societal situations. She also places emphasis on childhood experiences, especially those that involve parental indifference, which she calls the "basic evil." Parental indifference, the lack of warmth and affection in childhood, is a matter of the child's perception, not the parents' intentions. Based upon her experiences as a psychiatrist, Horney was able to name ten patterns of neurotic needs, which are based upon things which she thought all humans require to succeed in life Compliance (self-effacing solution): under Horney's theory, children facing difficulties with parents often use this strategy. Fear of helplessness and abandonment occurs, a phenomena Horney refers to as "basic anxiety". These individuals strive to feel worthy and believe the only way to gain this is through the acceptance of others. They have an intense need to be liked, involved, important, and appreciated, so much so, that they will often fall in love quickly or feel an artificial but very strong attachment to people they may not know well. Aggression (expansive solution): neurotic children or adults within this category often exhibit anger or basic hostility to those around them. That is, there is a need for power and a need for control and exploitation. These individuals wish for social recognition through being feared by subordinates and peers. In addition, they need to be admired by those within their social circle in order to feel satisfied. Those with this personality style come across as bossy, demanding, selfish, and even cruel. Horney argued that these people project their own hostilities (which she called externalization) onto others and therefore use this as a justification to "get them before they get me." Detachment (resigning solution): Horney recognized that children might simply try to become self-sufficient in light of parental indifference. This individual might withdraw from his/her surroundings and disregard others in a non-aggressive manner, instead looking to solitude and independence. These individuals have a mentality of "If I don't get involved with others, I can't be hurt by them." Moreover, a common personality trait of a detached individual is perfectionism. They strive for perfection above all else, to the point where being flawed is utterly unacceptable. skip to 2:47 Every individual behaves on and requires different levels of compliance, aggression, and detachment. What makes these three needs neurotic is when they are unrealistic, unreasonable, and indiscriminate. For instance, if affection isn't shown clearly at all times, in all circumstances, and by all people, neurotic individuals will feel anxiety, for they have made the need too central to their existence. For example, a child might feel a lack of warmth and affection should a parent tease the child good-naturedly. The parent may also neglect to fulfill promises, which in turn could have a detrimental effect on the child's mental state. In both of these examples, no matter how well-intentioned the parent might be, the child could easily be mentally affected for the major part of his/her life Horney noticed that the basic pattern of responses in children toward parental indifference is first anger (basic hostility), then compliance (basic anxiety), and finally, if the first two coping methods failed, detachment. http://goanimate.com/videos/0zHbB1HDbai8?utm_source=linkshare Neurosis Animation